Guest Author - Meg Grooms

A major benefit of homeschooling is being able to tailor your child’s learning to their interests and skill levels. Curriculum designed for school use doesn’t always mirror what the child wants to learn, rather it tells them what they should learn and leaves very little room for interest. The curriculum schools use are designed to ensure all students hit the same goals at the same time and then lessons stop and a new topic is covered. A custom-tailored homeschool curriculum recognizes the child’s current skill level and sets a goal of improving upon that level until it is mastered, and beyond!

Creating a custom homeschool curriculum takes some time but the effort is worth it. You can create a custom curriculum for free or very low cost if you have a few supplies. To create a curriculum you will need:

1. Computer with internet access (high speed is best but dial-up will work too)

2. Printer and ink

3. Paper, especially printing paper

4. Library card (this is optional with the resources listed below)

5. A binder and hole punch (or binder with page protectors to make re-
useable pages)

The first step is to identify your child’s interests. Pay attention to the books they pick-up on their own or the television shows they are interested in. For the sake of this article we’re going to choose an eight year old child who has an interest in mythology. This child is just for illustrative purposes, adjust and adapt according to your child’s age, interest and skill level.

The backbone of any good curriculum is literature. You don’t have to run to the bookstore or library, however. Check out WOWIO (http://www.wowio.com), a virtual library full of ebooks on every topic you can think of. Wowio allows you to download up to five ebooks for free each day. A quick search of “mythology” will lead you to several resources. Download, print and place in binder.

After you have the literature down check online for activities. Enchanted Learning (http://www.enchantedlearning.com) is a website offering thousands of quality educational activities, including printables and craft directions. Enchanted Learning is free but you may find that purchasing an annual membership is worth the price as you will not be subjected to advertisements and you will have more printing options. A search of “mythology” at Enchanted Learning results in 18 activity matches. Search other terms such as “dragon” or specific countries for more matches. Print out these activities and add to binder.

Allow your child time to plan projects. You might want to start out by providing them with a place to write down their ideas. Handwriting For Kids (http://handwritingforkids.com/) and DLTK-Kids (http://www.dltk-cards.com/writingpaper/) offer free printable writing paper that you can adjust to meet your child’s writing needs. DLTK-Kids allows you to print themed writing paper, to give your child’s project a little something extra. Use this paper to encourage them to create their own stories or write book reports. Your child can also use these pages for vocabulary, narration and notebooking.

Have your child create art about their interest. Your child can make trading cards that can be stored in baseball card protector sheets in the back of their binder. Hand-made postcards or travel brochures can be stored in scrapbook pages or photograph album inserts, all placed in their binder. Have your child study a famous painting related to their topic and ask them to recreate it.

Supplemental math is easy to introduce into your binder and should be used in addition to your child’s normal math curriculum. Flash cards are useful for many games and can be easily created online at Scholastic’s website (http://www.scholastic.com/kids/homework/flashcards.htm). Flash cards are easily stored in your binder using an empty page protector, hole-punched zipper bag or baseball card holders. Perform a Google.com search for “printable math worksheets” and “printable math games” to add even more content.

A tailor-made education is one of the best gifts a parent can give a child.